Lost Coast Trail

We got coveted Lost Coast Trail permits!!

Updated for 2024:

Permits are released on a 3-month rolling window on recreation.gov at 7 AM Pacific. Permits are valid for up to three people only, which is important to keep in mind if you are attempting to travel with a larger group. When selecting your dates, it’s also important to look at the tide charts to ensure that you will have low tides during the day to get through the two zones that are impassible when it’s high tide. This is not to be taken lightly, as people have died by not respecting the tides here.

The Lost Coast Trail begins at Mattole Trailhead, located approximately 5.5 hours north of San Francisco in the King Range. Jon and I drove up to his folks for the night, then picked up Andrew at SFO the next day before continuing our drive north. Logistically, we planned to drop our car at the end – Black Sands Beach – then catch a shuttle to the trailhead. We choose Lost Coast Adventure Tours, and were pleased with the transportation services.

After a smooth, albeit early, drive we arrived at Mattole Trailhead and our trek really began. In true Lost Coast fashion, the morning was banked in heavy coastal fog. Despite blocking the ocean views, it was spooky and beautiful in it’s own way, and certainly one of my more unique hiking experiences!

By late morning we had reached the Punta Gouda Lighthouse, at approximately 3.2 miles into our trek. This is a popular day-hiking destination, and as long as you aren’t staying overnight is accessible for day trips. The lighthouse itself was neat to explore but even more impressive was the tons of elephant seals relaxing on the beach nearby. It wasn’t a particularly exciting season so everyone was pretty chill, but I think that there was (I hope?) a scientist out walking amongst the elephant seals, which seemed dangerous so of course kept our attention for awhile.

Continuing on, the trail left the beach for the bluffs above and we broke through some of the fog. Our goal for today was to reach Cooksie Creek, which is right after one of the impassible zones. We’d have to hike fast and smart to beat the tides, but thankfully we did. When you read online about the challenging terrain (i.e. the rocks) – they aren’t joking. We almost didn’t attempt Cooksie since we knew it would be slower going but figured it was better to try than not since we could always go back since there was tons of daylight if needed. Ultimately, we made it through but the tide was definitely coming in and if we had attempted it even 10 minutes later may have been a different story.

We arrived at Cooksie, scouted for a good site and settled in. With the proximity to the ocean, camp fire rings were abundant and with the damp air we knew a fire was in our future. We relaxed, had a fire, dinner, some drinks and just had such a great first day on trail.

We were doing the 25 mile trail over the course of 3 days, 2 nights, which meant that each day wasn’t terribly long by our usual standards. However, there was rain in the forecast for today so we wanted to get an early start on our day so that we would be settled into camp by the time the worst of it hit.

The trail took us above the beach today for a good portion of the day, so we made great time – despite missing a turn on the beach and going too far in the wrong direction. We made it to Big Flat before the rain and had a little fire, and were enjoying it so much we just put on our ponchos and kept sitting by the fire when the rain came. Eventually the rain seeped through and we had to escape to the tents. I had downloaded some shows on my phone so Jon and I watched “tv”. I only mention this because we were commenting that my phone was terrible to watch the shows on because it was so dark… only to realize that I had my screen backlight all the way down while we were attempting to watch.

For our third and final day, we had about 9 miles to hike to reach Shelter Cove, the end of the trail and where our car awaited us. The worst of the rain had stopped but it was still dripping and misty, which progressively got worse throughout the day. With so much rain, the creeks were full of water and there was no way to get cross except to walk on through them. With soaked feet, soaked everything we trudged on – silent often, laughing at the conditions other times. Real Type 2 fun kind of day.

Of course, as we reached Black Sand Beach, the rain finally stopped and the sun came out. We were so excited to end our trip on a beautiful high note. We celebrated with beers afterwards at Gyppo Ale Mill, then stopped at Humboldt Redwoods State Park to see the big trees before doing the long drive back to San Francisco, where Andrew had a flight home the following morning.